“When we weren’t enjoying our new life and freedom, we were completing a mountain of paperwork and reporting for mandatory check-ins at the base clinic. Most of the swelling in my leg was gone and the scabs were healing. The wounds on my arms and legs were faded to scars.
“Jack’s face still bore the marks of shrapnel and the slash across his throat, but aside from the cosmetic wounds he was healing too. He was going to end with a little better collection of scars than I was, but neither of us were going to have any lingering functional problems and that’s all we really cared about.
“On the morning of Saturday the 6th we boarded a plane to Los Angeles. Ten hours later we got on another one to Houston, Texas and stopped off there for the night. The base served as a go-between for the larger ones on the coasts and they had a small makeshift barracks for those of us passing through.
“The next morning, Sunday the 7th of April, we got on a plane to Rickenbacker Air Force base in Columbus, Ohio. Three of the most intense hours of my life as I tried and tried to imagine being home.
“How do you think we should greet Mama?” I asked Jack over and over. He must have been irritated as hell with me, but he never said anything. Just let me go on and on.
“We arrived into Columbus around midday and spent over two hours completing our discharge there. We had to sign and date everything they put in front of us and to this day they may still have claim over my first born child.
“I signed everything; I didn’t care what it was.
“In return for our time spent in Korea, the last thing the Army did was grant us a Jeep ride home. We knew Mama wouldn’t have a car and the notion of thumbing a ride south didn’t appeal to either one of us. Lord knows we could have walked the thirty miles easy enough, but once you’ve gotten so close to your destination, you can’t help but want to be there now.
“A young Private Airman named Seamus Bailey was appointed to drive us home. He was about the same age if not even a little older than us, but the past months had given us both something far beyond our years. Seamus still wore the bright eyed optimism and naivety of a man that hadn’t seen war, still bore the hope that everything he had read in the papers was true.
“How’d you guys fare over there?” he asked, trying to make small talk to pass the time.
“Jack had given the front seat to me and sat across the back staring out into the open fields. His jaw was set and his eyes were locked and I could tell he didn’t have any interest in the conversation at hand.
“It was what it was,” I said. “It was war and nobody really wins at war.”
“Bailey nodded as if he knew what I was talking about. “For you boys to be coming home like this, you must have been wounded. Mind if I ask what happened?”
“He looked in the rearview mirror to Jack hoping for an answer, but none came.
“You can’t mind him,” I said. “Old Jack’s not a hateful sort, I just don’t think he wants to talk about it is all.
“To answer your question, Jack took shrapnel from a mortar round and was tortured in a prison camp. I was shot making our escape.”
“Bailey’s eyes bulged a bit and he asked, “Escape? Aren’t there exchange programs and stuff for that?”
“I snorted and said, “Minimal at best. The camp we were in nobody even knew existed. Our only options were to escape or die along with five hundred others just like us.”
“Bailey furrowed his brow and said, “So you all managed to escape? Five hundred men?”
“I shook my head. “The two of us managed to escape and travel over a hundred miles on foot to allied forces. From there we engaged in an aerial assault that wiped the camp off the map.”
“Even as I said the words, I couldn’t really believe everything I was saying. It seemed like a plot from a book or something, the amount Jack and I had been through together.
“Bailey exhaled and shook his head, started to ask another question.
“You can leave us here,” Jack said. “We’ll take the last mile or two on foot. Thanks a lot for the ride.”
“Bailey’s cheeks flushed red as he eased the car to the side of the road. Jack hopped from the backseat to the ground and I eased myself from the front seat out onto the dusty road. I thanked Bailey for the ride and shook his hand and we both waited as he turned the Jeep around and drove away, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine?” I said as we started the final leg of a journey that had taken over a week to complete.
“Jack shrugged. “Just didn’t much feel like talking about Korea anymore. He’s never been anywhere near combat but he’ll go to a bar tonight and tell some girl about how he was in an unmapped prison camp and had to escape on foot and saved the whole place.”
“I chuckled and said, “You could have let him drop us off a little closer you know. I do have a hole in my leg.”
“Jack made a face and said, “You have two little scabs that are almost gone. You can make it a mile on foot.”
“Together we walked down the old dusty road, an eerie familiarity hanging about it. We’d been gone not quite a year but everything looked almost the same, just different enough to be noticeable.
“Looking back it wasn’t that anything about it was different, just the people viewing it. We’d seen too much to ever see things the way we had before.
“So how we going to play this with Mama?” I asked as we drew close, exiting off the road and entering onto the dirt path that led us home.
“Jack paused and said, “If she’s outside, we’ll walk up and pretend we’re asking for directions. If she’s inside, we’ll stay out in the yard and make enough noise that she hears us and comes out.”
“I held the images of both playing out in my head for several minutes and as we got closer I could see Mama out back, hanging fresh wash on the line. It took everything I had not to run and throw my arms around her, pick her up in a hug and spin her around and around.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Let’s slip in through the front door and sit down at the kitchen table. We’ll wait for her to come in and act like we’ve been there all along.”
“Jack turned to me and smiled. “I like it.”
“Together we dropped into a low crouch and jogged the last few hundred yards to the house as Mama continued hanging laundry on the back line. The front door was standing open to let a breeze pass through as we crept in and took seats at the kitchen table.
“I pointed out to Jack the framed pictures of us above the stove and the candle and cross between them. I looked him a question, but he knew no more about it than I did.
“It took almost fifteen minutes for Mama to enter the house, laundry basket in hand. With every bit of our strength we remained silent, smiles stretched across our faces.
“I’m not sure what reaction I was expecting Mama to have, but it definitely wasn’t the one she gave us. She didn’t smile and she didn’t run for us.
“She collapsed into a ball, heaving and crying.
“Jack and I rushed forward and dropped to our knees, wrapping our arms around her as she sobbed and sobbed. Her thin arms reached out for us and pulled us in a grip so tight it almost took my breath away and for several long minutes she stayed that way.
“Mama, we’re home,” Jack whispered once she quieted, sending her into another burst of tears that lasted several minutes more.
“The two of us helped her from the floor and set her in a chair. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Aren’t you happy to see us?”
“Mama bobbed her head as tears streamed down her face and she tried to speak. Sniffles choked her voice as she reached into the hem of her dress and pulled out a folded envelope.
“Jack took it from her and read:
The United States War Department would like to extend its deepest sympathies on the passing of your sons, Jack and Richard Roberts, killed in action November 27, 1950. They were good soldiers that served honorably. On behalf of a grateful nation, p
lease accept these small payments of gratitude for your son’s service.
“Jack sat the letter down and pulled two more pieces of paper from the envelope.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Jack licked his lips and said, “Checks. One for each us. $20,000 apiece.”
“I received that letter three months ago, but I refused to believe it,” Mama said. “I knew you boys would be coming home. I want you both to know that. Those are the original checks they sent me; I never went and cashed them. I knew my boys would be coming home.”
“With the last sentence my mother’s voice tailed off and she began to cry again.
“I stepped forward and put my arms around her and she buried her head against my chest. I looked at Jack and asked, “Why did they think we were dead?”
“Jack studied the letter, his face twisted up in thought. “November 27th. You remember where we were then?”
“I continued running my hand over Mama’s hair as it hit me.
“Chosin.”
“Jack nodded. “My guess is they sent a letter to every person’s family in the entire 5th. They had no reason to believe anybody survived.”
“We should find a way to send word to Marks and the other families.”
“Jack nodded again. “Tomorrow. Tonight, we’re here with Mama.” He moved in and kissed the top of Mama’s head as she slid her right arm from around me and grabbed him too.
“Much like the night we left, we spent that one wrapped up together at the kitchen table.”
My uncle stopped short and I looked up to see him gazing down at the album. Moisture had worked its way from his eyes into the crevices of his face and he turned his head to hide it from the last glow of sunlight.
“The next page holds the very checks the government sent my mother, $20,000 for each of our lives. We both wanted to burn them, show the world we were very much alive, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it.
“Said she wanted those checks around to remind her that no matter where her boys went, they were always coming home.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The door swung open behind us again and my parents walked from the house. My mother had my father’s suit coat around her shoulders and said, “Come on Austin, it’s time to be heading home.”
I looked down at the album and said, “Can we stay just a little longer? I want to hear the rest of the story.”
My father shook his head and said, “Come on now son, listen to your mother.”
Before I could protest further my uncle said, “If you folks wouldn’t mind, we won’t be but a few more minutes. We’re almost done with our conversation out here.”
My mother drew her mouth into a tight line and sighed. “Alright Uncle Cat, I guess we can stay a few more minutes.”
Uncle Cat nodded and murmured a low thank you as my parents retreated back into the house.
My uncle followed their path back inside and I said, “Are we really almost done?”
The sun was sending its last fading rays from beneath the horizon and stars were starting to poke through the evening sky.
He nodded and said, “Yes, we are. There’s only one page left, a page that’s taken forty years in the making and still isn’t done.
“Today it took another step towards completion.”
“Today?” I asked.
“Go ahead and turn to it,” Uncle Cat said. I did so and found a page lined with small newspaper cutouts. They had clearly been taken over time because each was a little bit different in color, the type on them a touch unique.
The articles were lined four across the page; each cut to the same side and lay side by side. At the top of each one was a small picture of a man, every one of them in military dress.
“That page,” my uncle said, “is the last remnants of the 5th.” He walked over from the post and took his seat. He patted his lap twice and I picked the book up from the floor and gave it to him.
He ran his finger along the first row and said, “These four weren’t lucky enough to make it home with us. The entire first row. Francis, Petersen, Avery and Sparks all fell on the road to Koto-Ri.
“These clippings weren’t easy to track down and only Sparks and Avery even had graves we could visit. I wish I knew more of their story, how they spent their lives before we left and the family they left behind, but I don’t. Just like Europe or the South Pacific holds secrets for so many from the World Wars, the fields of Korea hold just as many for us.”
My uncle paused for a moment, then ran his finger to the start of the second row.
“Sims was the first of us that made it home to go,” Uncle Cat, tapping the far right picture in the group. “We hadn’t been home very long when we got a letter from Marks telling us about it.
“Sims went home after the war and returned to working on his parents’ farm in Kentucky. One day he was out riding when he came across a flint ridge. He tried to stay on his horse and cross it, but the footing was too bad. The horse slid fifteen feet into the ravine and took him down with it.
“Sims hit his head on a rock on the way down, bled to death before anybody found him.”
My uncle slid his finger across and said, “Manus went next. Automobile accident. One night he was caught in a rainstorm and spun out on some loose gravel. Car slammed broadside into a tree. He was killed on impact.”
Moving sideways again he said, “Dwayne passed away in ‘60. Nobody’s really sure what happened, but as best we can guess he was in a bar in Louisville and got into an argument with a couple of gentlemen farmers there.
“Last anybody saw he was leaving for the night. Police found him the next morning beaten so bad his face was barely recognizable.” My uncle shook his head and said, “Dwayne was a hothead and Lord knows we had our share of disagreements, but he was also a good man and a good soldier.
“Didn’t deserve anything like that.”
My uncle paused again and stared down at the floor, shaking his head. This time though, there was no smile across his face.
“For several years after Dwayne passed we were pretty lucky. We were all young and in decent health and for awhile it was nice to keep in touch without having a funeral to attend while doing it.
“That changed in the late sixties, beginning with Marks. Marks had gone back home, married his high school sweetheart, and together they had four children. One day while taking a family picnic to a lake near their home they decided to go for a swim.
“They spent the afternoon playing about and with a large family it’s easy for one to go missing.” My uncle paused for a second and stared at the album page in front of him. “Marks drowned trying to find that child. Turns out she had just gotten bored and wandered off. By the time she returned an hour later he was gone.”
Sliding his finger down to the bottom row he said, “Buddy made it well into the seventies before meeting his end. He went home and married a little girl several years younger than him from his hometown. Went to work in a factory making glass light bulbs and together they raised a nice family.
“We saw Buddy a couple of times a year and spoke as often as we could. To this day his wife and I still exchange Christmas cards.
“Buddy had a condition that caused his blood to thicken, something nobody even knew he had until it was too late. One Sunday morning he was sitting in church with his family when a blood clot worked its way to his aorta.
“Died on the spot from a massive heart attack. There were a couple of doctors in the congregation that morning but there was nothing they could do for him.”
Moving his finger over again my uncle said, “Winter before last Caldwell left us. We hadn’t known him as well when we left Korea, but over the years we grew closer. He always showed when the group got together, always threw back some cheap vodka with us, and always bowed his head and prayed with us when another of us passed.
“When he’d gotten back from Korea he’d moved west to Missouri and opened a hardware store outside of St. Louis. By all accounts
it was a rather successful business and he too raised a nice family and led a good life.
“Every day he’d open the store at six in the morning and close it at four-thirty in the afternoon. Did it that way so the early risers could get what they needed first thing and so he had time at the end of each day to walk the deposit to the bank before they closed.
“One very cold afternoon he was walking to the bank with snow whipping around when two hoodlums shot him from an alley as he walked by. They stole his deposit and left him lying on the sidewalk. In the thick snow nobody noticed him there until the next morning, at which point he was frozen solid.
“Coroner said it was the bullets that got him and he went without suffering, but those are the kinds of things coroners are supposed to tell people. Whether that’s true or not, we’ll never know.”
My uncle stared out at the tiny sliver of sun left sinking beneath the horizon and said, “Jack and I put this book together so our story could live on. It’s not that we thought our story was better than any other soldier that put on the uniform; it was just the only one we knew.
“When we returned home we weren’t showered with ticker tape parades and affection like the soldiers from the World Wars. We weren’t reviled and called baby killers like the soldiers of Vietnam.
“We weren’t anything.
“I’ve heard the war in Korea referred to as The Forgotten War. To any man that served there that’s a slap in the face. Not so much because of the name but because it was true. It was a forgotten war. People here at home treated us with an apathy that was appalling.
“Nobody ever asked us our story or if they could write it down, so we did it ourselves. We did it for each other and for the many other men in the story that went to war with us. Today people use it as an analogy to describe their friends or their teammates, but I defy you to stand next to a man in combat and compare it to a football game or a job.”
My uncle fell silent for several minutes. I watched as his face went from hard to soft to sad and a tear slid from his eye.
He reached into his pocket and pulled another newspaper clipping from it and laid it down next to Caldwell’s.
Scars and Stars Page 27
